US: California State University LA evacuated due to bomb threat

19th Apr 2013

LOS ANGELES, (Xinhua): The campus of California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) was evacuated Thursday due to a bomb threat.

CSULA spokesman Paul Browning said at a press conference Thursday afternoon that the Police Department in the nearby city of El Monte received a phone call from an anonymous man at around 11 a.m. local time (1800 GMT) claiming a bomb would go off in the campus in two hours.

The school authority immediately began to evacuate students and staff as a precaution after learning of the situation and to inform all the students and teaching staff by means such as loud speakers on the campus, email, website announcements and social media including Twitter and Facebook.

Los Angeles Police Department also dispatched a bomb squad to the El Sereno campus, where all the day and evening classes were canceled.

The students’ dorms were all cleared, and most of the students and staff on the campus were evacuated. Roads to the campus were closed.

A search on the main campus was underway. No further information is available for the moment.

The university, part of the California State University system, currently has about 20,000 students, who are primarily from the greater Los Angeles area.

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